Cascading Words
by cascadingwords
Summary: Story takes over during the beginning of season 3, after the kiss that Paige and Emily shared but before the revealing of how that kiss came to be. Paige feels as much love and she does guilt for Emily and she makes a new friend who seems to help clarify things. Things will get rough in later chapters. Any feedback is appreciated.


**Disclaimer - I do not own any of the rights for the main characters of this story or the whole of Pretty Little Liars, I am simply here to share my take on what could have been. I also don't own any lyrics/poems that are stated to be owned by others. I will be changing a lot of what has happened on the show, I'm too lazy to rewatch episodes and get certain dialogues right.**

**Paige** (POV) -

The thing that always seems to get me into trouble lately is my willingness to do anything for Emily. I've leapt into the depth of all of my known fears and even those I didn't know that I had. I wish I could take back any time when she didn't think she could trust me, I'd give anything to kiss her first, before I went through all of my bullshit. I guess my point is that I'd put her before anything, sacrifice whatever necessary to keep her safe. I love her. That's why I did what I did.

**Four weeks earlier.**

The worst thing about school is also my most favorite thing about school - seeing Emily Fields. She still takes my breath away, makes my heart race, my brain seize up, but below all of those feelings and.. many bodily reactions just at the sight of her, they're often often accompanied by an incredible guilt squeezing my lungs empty. I hate myself for ruining what we could have been and I'm disappointed in myself even more for what happened less than a week ago.

Emily came to my house, to me, she kissed me, but she was drunk, so far out of it. When she kissed me I never should have kissed her back, I was just.. so surprised and I had missed her lips for so long that I just wanted one moment where I could close my eyes and fool myself. I'd never take it any farther, I couldn't live with myself, but I still feel so guilty for letting it illicit actual pleasure in me. I wish I could take it back during the day but at night when I lay in bed I pretend that she was sober and I was really what she wanted when she came here that night. The truth is that she was probably just there because she needed a ride home, she had said a few times that night that she didn't know how she got here.

I have to stop thinking about this, I have to get dressed and go to school where all of these thoughts will enter my mind again after I see her. As long as she's in my sight all I can think about is how beautiful she is and how badly I want to make her smile again, I hardly ever see her smile anymore. When she's gone so is all of the hope that I've tied to her floating in balloons with thin strings. I've tried to think of ways that I could justify talking to her, every day I just hope an opportunity will present itself that allows me to say her name out loud.

**Later that day.**

I'm in trouble in chemistry again. I can never seem to pay attention in that class, I don't know why. Mr. Clarence starts talking and I zone out, end up writing a bunch of little 3 line poems. They all apologize for something. As of today only one other person has ever read one of these besides myself and it was an accident. I was stumped for a word that somehow meant "to fall fast, loosely" when a slip of paper found it's way into the edge of my notebook from the seat to my right; it had only the word "cascading" written on it. I looked over knowing that it must have been Jen who had helped me out and when she shot me the left half of her smile I'm sure that my face turned every shade of red that exists. I hadn't even admitted to myself that I was taking these poems kind of seriously and now that someone else knew about even just this one it made it very real and embarrassing. I hurriedly scribbled "Thank you" onto the back of that same slip of paper and slipped it onto her desk, trying hard to give her the right half of my smile without blushing again. I wanted to thank her again when class was over but I was called up to the front of the class to talk about my last test score and Mr. Clarence made me swear at least three times that I would try harder on the next test and she was long gone by the time I left the door.

Now that I'm sitting alone in the lunchroom without an appetite I pull out my notebook again to try and finish my thought. Before I can finish wracking my brain for the last half of the last line of this poem I can feel someone come up behind me and lean near my ear to quietly say "you write beautifully." I blush up again and turn my head to see Jen seat herself onto the bench beside me and point to my notebook, "do you mind if I have a look?"

I couldn't say no - louder than my need to hide this side of myself was my need to let someone else in, so I nodded my head. She pulled my notebook in front of herself and drew her eyebrows near themselves in attention to the words on the page. I worried briefly that she would flip through the pages before I decided to finally say something before she thought I couldn't speak at all. "I wanted to find you after class, thank you again for the help, but Mr. C foiled that plan, actually I guess I did since it was my test score that he wanted to talk about." Shut, up, Paige.

She looked up from the notebook and smiled, "that's funny, because I wanted to tell you that you write beautifully after class but then saw you pulled to the front of the class, thus leaving Mr. C foiling my plan as well."

I chuckled lightly and realized that she had now said it twice without me actually acknowledging it. "Thank you," I said, "for both the word and the compliment."

"You're welcome. If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been writing?"

I pulled what was probably my most confused face as I tried to figure out the answer and when I couldn't I just guessed. "I think it's been maybe a year? I'm not sure, I guess I didn't make a mental note."

"So it isn't just your dislike of Chemistry that brings it out in you?" and she smiled again, her very sunny smile that if I didn't know any better was genuinely friendly, a rare find.

I chuckled again and sighed, "no, that's just my only inspiration lately."

"Really? I would have thought you were inspired by love or some kind of sadness, judging from this poem anyway." I froze and she noticed right away because she closed my notebook and put it back in front of me, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have imposed, I know how private poetry can be."

Being that I am easily distracted, instead of being taken aback I chose to dwell on her choice of words, "do you write?"

"I'm a fiction girl mostly, but I've been told that I have a very prose-like writing style. I really am sorry, we don't ever have to talk about it again if you like. If you'd like, I could even help you with Chemistry. I've got a method for note taking that really helps when studying for Mr. C's tests."

"Don't be sorry, you weren't imposing. I've just never shared this with anyone and I'm not used to having my feelings be told to me by someone else.." when I felt that I had paused for too long I finally finished by agreeing to her help, I could use all that I could get. Hell, I could even use all of the friends I can get, they make for good distractions. After Jen was gone I didn't open my notebook up again, I just sat there staring at it for the last minute before the bell rang and I got up and put it into my bag.

* * *

_I'm fairly certain that I know where I'm going with the story but I'm not so certain about how much time I'll actually have to write it. Hopefully I'll have another chapter soon, that is if there is any need for it. Any criticism is welcomed, I can always use help with editing, my wording, my excessive use of commas, etc. Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. _


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